CC 9: Tenacity ~ Forty-Six

The Ritualist shifted his position, ready to bodily block the Dwarf from approaching the Town Hall. His words came out dripping with condescension, “What’re you going to do, Stu? Destroy the Town Hall in front of your entire people? Smash it so that we can't build all of these fine people some better places to live, work, and thrive? Go ahead! Be the reason that all of their effort, all of their losses, are thrown away.”

The Master’s furious strides slowed to a halt, and he stared at Joe without looking around, his hands clenched into fists so hard that blood began leaking from his palms. Finally unable to take another moment of the situation, Stu spat out, “You… filthy human! We don't want you here! We don't want you around, messing up our lives and changing how the world works!”

A low murmuring started to fill the air as the celebrating defenders began listening in on the conversation. As the Master of Sarcasm continued shouting at Joe, the murmur turned into a susurration that rapidly grew louder and more unaccommodating. Finally, another Dwarf walked forward and asked Stu a question, his voice filled with confusion and concern. “Council bro, didn't this guy save our butts? Like, a whole bunch? With the Elves, now with this hefty eyeball boi?”

“He didn't save us, he broke the balance! The Elves would take a fortress, we would take it back, slowly building our knowledge based on how they defended or attacked!” Now the Master of Sarcasm thrust an accusatory finger at Joe, his eyes filling with madness. “All this bald human did was mess up the good thing we had going! He’s a traitor!”

Joe remained silent and merely continued repairing the Town Hall, giving the Dwarf plenty of room to build up momentum for his swan dive off the approaching reputational cliff. It didn't take long, as practically the only people that had remained this long were veterans of the Legion, or other humans that were certain to take Joe's side in this matter. A contingent of military leadership started forward, their hands on their weapons, their eyes narrowed as Stu stood there fuming; heaving for air as he barely held himself back from throwing himself at the Ritualist.

“You mean to tell us that… our losses, our friends, all of the work that we’ve been doing for centuries… all of that was a front so that you and the Elves could test out weapon ideas and new iterations of defenses?” Joe wasn't sure what rank this Dwarf was, as he hadn’t spent enough time learning the military lore, but going by the respect of all of the Dwarves around her, this mustachioed non-commissioned officer had been on the front lines more often than not. “Was this how you ran your sector? Feeding information to the Elves that they eventually used to wipe us out? I don't know about the rest of you-”

Here she was raising her voice to the crowd around her, and their angry silence spoke for them as she continued, “-but to me it sounds like you were the traitor. How many weapons did you give the Elves? How many of our defensive plans did you hand over? Somebody get me a strategist, let's map out the route the Elves took to carve through our fortresses. Something tells me… something tells me they practically danced directly through Stu’s sector.”

Finally recognizing that he was as good as on trial at the moment, the Master paled and backpedaled furiously. “No! That's not what happened! I'm not a traitor, I'm a wordsmith! It was never meant to make our people fail, only to succeed. I swear, I didn't know they’d come through my territory so easily, I thought we had a deal!”

“Oh look, ‘I’m not a traitor, I'm just incompetent’!” Jaxon cheerfully called out, getting a few eyes flicking over to him, but they all quickly returned to the Dwarf. “That is an extremely novel defense, but I'm pretty sure it's not a very good one.”

Stu closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and relaxed. A moment later, he looked around the crowd and spoke again, this time his words were carefully crafted and oozing the Charisma that he’d worked to build up over the centuries. “No, none of this is what you think it is. Let's all take a few minutes to come down from our battle high, take a few moments to regroup, and I can clearly explain the situation. My apologies, I was out of sorts. I think I was struck with some kind of insanity spell for a minute there. Likely from earlier, when this bald human attacked me. You all know about that, don’t y-?”

His final word was cut off as Major Cleave sprinted into the area, her axe held high. “There you are! You're as slippery as an eel! I have no idea how you got out of the ropes I tied you up in.”

“No, not the face!” Stu squealed and lifted his arms to protect his head as she swung her axe. Moments later, he was unconscious on the ground with a furiously breathing Major holding her weapon above him in preparation to directly execute the man that could apparently slither out of bindings.

“Hold on!” Joe called out before she could strike the man down just because rope wasn't holding him. “I'm fairly certain he has a high affinity with ropes, twine, and the like, because he uses a yo-yo as a weapon. Most likely he just used some kind of skill that unknotted the ropes you tied him up in. Try chains!”

“I don't have any chains.” Cleve ignored Joe as she lifted her axe high. “He practically admitted to working with our ancient enemy, and-”

“Are you going to send him back to them as an Elf with a ton of accolades to his name as a Dwarf?” Joe's words cut through her focus, and Major Cleave paused, then let her weapon fall to her side. “Don't give him what his alternative self would want. Hand him over to Grandmaster Snow, have him removed from the council, and put him to work on behalf of the Dwarven society until he clears his name.”

No one seemed to be listening at the moment, and Joe furrowed his brow. Then he remembered that he was aligned with Dark Charisma, and was attempting to tell people not to be violent at the moment. Of course it was ineffective! “Forget that! Beat him within an inch of his life and throw him into a mine to break rocks until he clears his name!”

“Yeah!” The mob cheered and began to break up; they’d been running on pure adrenaline from the battle, and were finally starting to cool down. Joe let out a sigh of relief, knowing that the brisk air around them likely helped save the situation. Every once in a while, he forgot exactly how warlike, hierarchical, and direct the Dwarves were when it came to major issues like this. To his great relief, everyone began to disperse, the issue at hand seemingly having been decided.

“Oh, wait, no. They're running off to loot as much as they can before someone stops them.” Joe cursed lightly, sending a Dark Lightning Strike at a group attempting to steal his Cyclops. “Back off! That's mine! I'm already planning to donate most of it to build up the city!”

“Then I'm taking your Penguin, bro!” The Dwarf that had taken the brunt of the lightning strike was shaking uncontrollably as his nerves reset, and scooped up a snowball and whipped it at Joe's face in retaliation. The human didn't flinch. An instant later the packed snow puffed against his Exquisite Shell, and the Dwarf took a shadowy slap to the face.

Joe smirked as the Dwarf flinched and ended up slipping and falling face-first into a snow drift. “I feel like that worked out well.”

The next few hours were a blur of activity, as thousands of people worked together to haul carcasses, fix the Town Hall, and even participated in moving it back to its original location after a handful of geomancers filled in the massive crater that was in the place it had stood. That worked out extremely well, as they were able to firm up the foundations under the building to a much higher degree by repurposing the failing Trash walls, making the stone as dense as possible in order to hopefully protect against any burrowing creatures that might attack them in the future.

Just as everything was resetting, and seeming to settle down into a standard routine, thousands of Dwarves marched toward the city from the south, led by none other than Grandmaster Snow. Her expression was grim, and her visage thunderous as she looked for Joe. Eventually, she did find him. Joe watched calmly as she stomped toward him, coming to a halt and staring into his eyes silently.

Then she pulled her hand back and slapped him across the face with a crisp *smack*. “If your hair-brained idea had failed, nearly half of the entire remaining Dwarven race would have been wiped out! It was an unnecessary risk! If you’re willing to gamble with our lives so casually, how are we supposed to trust you in the future?”

“Well, let's be as rational about this as possible.” Joe turned his face back to examine the fuming Grandmaster, gently spitting a bit of blood from a split lip to the side. That strike had been enough to eradicate the rest of his Exquisite Shell, and deal a few points of damage through it. Somehow she’d even managed to cause his Retaliation of Shadows to fail, the automatic spell dissipating as soon as it began to manifest in the air next to her.

He saved that realization to think about at a later date.

“Fact is, you ran, evacuating even before your people. That doesn't scream that you had a lot of trust in me in the first place. Or that you were too worried about them.”

“It was a level thirty-five Cyclops! It was over forty feet tall, and had the potential to wipe out everyone!” Before she could build up a full head of steam in a rant, Joe held up a hand to forestall her.

“Just tell me one thing, Snow. Would you have been able to easily defeat that Cyclops if you had joined combat?”

“Easily?” She shook her head sharply. “Absolutely not! It would have been a hard fought battle, but it’s likely that I would have won. That's not the point.”

“It is the point.” Joe gestured to the side, where Stu was being dragged toward them by two members of the Legion, a couple of large bumps protruding from the top of his head where Cleave had bonked him to knock him out. “If you would’ve joined combat, or the rest of the Masters had, there’s no way that Cyclops would’ve been able to casually build up enough power to wipe out a chunk of the town in one hit. If you would’ve gotten involved ahead of time, it may have taken out a few walls, but it wouldn’t have threatened our settlement. The question is… why didn't you? I think I know now.”

Joe walked over to the captured Master of Sarcasm, mimicking Snow's actions from a moment before by rearing back and slapping the Dwarf across the face. He came around with a shout, and immediately began struggling against the Legionnaires holding him. “Stu is a coward. He's been working against your best interests, our best interests. To be fair, I don't think he thought his actions through… he just didn't want to give up his eminently comfortable, profitable life. Ever since we arrived on Jotunheim, the biggest impediment to his being able to be lazy… was me. Think back. Why’d you make the decision not to trust me, or Havoc, when we had ideas?”

Grandmaster Snow opened her mouth to speak, then turned to blink at the Master of Sarcasm who was staring at her with wide, pleading eyes. Her brow furrowed in confusion and consternation. Joe saw that, and let out an internal sigh of relief. “Good. Now think back to what happened on the last world. I will let the Legion explain that situation to you; I'm sure they can give a better accounting for his actions—or rather, lack of action. I hope this is enough for us to move forward as friends, and without his whispering against us behind closed doors, for us to trust each other again. I really liked it when we had that.”

“Because then you were able to make a cool turtle that caused a super volcano to erupt!” Jaxon cheerfully butted into the conversation. “When is the next time we can do something like that? I feel like an active volcano would be useful as a neighbor. Heat up the air, create a few lakes, be a natural terrain advantage…”

“You've given me a lot to think about. Not you, Jaxon, I’m talking to Joe.” Snow slowly stated, her gaze slowly trailing along the assembled groups of intermingled Dwarves and humans, who had never to this point had an issue working together. Then she looked out at the rest of the town, where a small but robust economy was starting to develop thanks to Joe's efforts, and his willingness to turn the means of production over to the people around him. “No more of this. Our lives have changed, and we need to adapt or we’ll fail once more. I'm going to do what I should’ve done back on the summit, when you defeated Master Stu. I’m invoking my right as a Grandmaster, as of this moment, humans will have representation in the city… in the form of Master Ritualist Joe.”

A cheer went up from the crowds around them, as the Grandmaster had used some form of skill to project her voice so that everyone could hear it. Even though he was still leery, Joe accepted the recognition with an uncomfortable smile. His eyes lit up as a new title appeared in his vision. “Oh! It comes with a useful title? In that case, I suppose I’ll accept.”

“Hold on, can I be on the council as well?” Jaxon offered with a winning smile. “Or Major Cleave? She brained this guy twice, that has to count for something!”

“No chance.” Snow hastily denied, though she softened the words with a smile and an explanation. “Unfortunately, there’s a maximum limit on how many counselors can be in charge. Only ten-a-city.”